Learning and Context: Connections in Continuing Professional Education.

A qualitative interpretivist study analyzed interrelationships among professional practice, knowledge gained in continuing professional education (CPE) programs, and context of employment. Eighty semi-structured, tape-recorded interviews were conducted with social workers, lawyers, adult educators, and nurses who had attended continuing education programs 9-24 months previously. Findings indicated professionals construct a knowledge base by moving back and forth between continuing professional education programs and their professional practice. Each profession described the process used to construct knowledge differently. Social workers framed their construction of knowledge from CPE programs through their advocacy role. Lawyers saw CPE as providing a "road map" for their practice. Adult educators indicated that from attendance at CPE programs they often would get one idea that was the "spark for a creative process" of connecting the new information to ideas and experiences, or "connecting different bodies of knowledge." Nurses described how they linked client needs with new information from CPE so the entire knowledge base became integrated. This process of knowledge construction was affected by elements of the structural, human resources, political, and symbolic frames of the contexts in which professionals were employed. (Contains 36 references.) (Author/YLB)